


Rain Check

by dondengaeshi



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Lee Taeyong redistributes the wealth to South Korean society, M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22860643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dondengaeshi/pseuds/dondengaeshi
Summary: There's a contract out for Taeil's life. Romance will have to take a rain check.
Relationships: Moon Taeil/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 13
Kudos: 64





	Rain Check

"You should try something new. You know; let loose sometimes." 

Those had been Haechan's parting words to him, four years ago when he had just started his undergrad at some highty-tighty performance school back in Jeju. Despite Taeil's senior status, he had always felt like he had more to learn from Haechan than Haechan ever had to learn from him, throughout the entirety of their relationship. It was bearable at first, embarrassing later on. 

Haechan hadn't been wrong, though. While everything in Taeil's world moved, he always chose to stay still, where his life was safe and predictable. Comfort is a slow death, he would come to learn, but by then it was too late. Haechan was off to college, chasing his dreams, finding his footing in the world and meeting new people far more interesting than Taeil could ever be. 

Regardless, those parting words were the reason Taeil stood on the corner of a dark intersection in some part of Seoul he wasn't familiar with. His hotel is only a few more blocks away, but in the colorless darkness of the streets, one building can't help but make itself known in the corner of Taeil's vision. It has a massive sign that flashes the name 'Neo Zone' in painfully bright colors, and some part of Taeil's intuition screams  _ red flag; do not approach.  _

He tells himself that it's because Haechan would've liked a place like this, so unabashedly advertising its tackiness, that he crosses the street. The sign may as well read 'Welcome to the Worst Night of your Life', but for once, Taeil wants to let loose. Maybe then he could convince himself that Haechan would have kept him around had he been a bit braver. 

His first thought upon entering is 'Oh, I wonder if I was supposed to know that.' Neo Zone turns out to be some kind of massive dance club slash bar, which is the opposite of anything that might interest him. He's already entered the lion's den though, so he decides to stick this through. At least for thirty minutes. He can survive thirty minutes.

It's really fucking dark inside the club, but he finds its more of a comfort than anything. People like him work best from the sidelines, anyway. He's small enough to navigate through the various groups of people (actively avoiding the dance floor) without anyone taking notice of him, and eventually he does find an island with bartenders running back and forth almost-frantically, fetching drinks for people and trying to stay civil. One of them stops to greet him almost immediately as he sits down, and he's so bewildered for a moment that someone is talking to him that he forgets how to speak. Eventually he's able to flounder out something on their menu that sounds fruity enough to his tastes, and he settles on people watching. 

Everyone looks rather young, though their faces are somewhat hard to make out in the dark, even with strobe lights occasionally falling on them. Nonetheless, nobody looks particularly downspirited or bored, which makes him feel a bit better. People are easier to interact with when they're in a good mood. His eyes move to scan the dance floor; the DJ is atop a platform, extremely immersed in his...work, Taeil supposes. The crowd of people seem to move together, and it's sort of mesmerising. There's so much of the world Taeil hasn't the slightest idea of; he wonders if it's weird to say he's simply  _ fascinated.  _ Fascinated, and if you look a bit closer, he's maybe even a bit proud of himself for getting so close to a world so hard to reach.

He notices the faint smile on his face at the same time someone from the crowd breaks out. There are two other people holding onto either one of his arms, pulling him backwards in a way that's more teasing than violent. The man gently shakes them off, a massive smile on his face, and Taeil can imagine him saying  _ I'll be back soon, don't worry _ ; a bold-faced lie. He turns away from them and immediately makes eye contact with Taeil. His smile falters for a moment, while Taeil holds his gaze steady. He takes a sip from his drink as the stranger approaches.

"See something you like?" he says, and Taeil decides he doesn't like him very much.

"Not particularly, no." 

The man tsks, and takes one of the empty seats beside him. One of the baristas takes his order, and he rests with his face in his palm, staring at Taeil. Taeil holds his gaze, unfaltering. His smile widens just slightly, thinking about just how difficult eye contact used to be for him when he was younger. He hopes the stranger doesn't notice.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Jangsik," Taeil lies easily. 

"I'm Yuta. Can I take you home tonight?"

Taeil just looks at him, swirling the ice around in his cup. Yuta has a nice body, he'll give him that, but it's best for Taeil and the people around him if he makes as little connections as possible; especially when he's here on work. 

"You don't even know me, though." 

"I could learn to know you, if you let me. Even if just for one night." Yuta sounds incredibly sincere when he says that, but Taeil isn't sure if it's practiced or not. 

He's asking a lot of Taeil, but there's no way for him to know that. He takes careful pains to ensure he is known to as little people as possible; to ensure people only have a vague idea of what he might have looked like, of the possible timbre of his voice. 

Still, he's already given Yuta a fake name. A fake persona can't be all that difficult to fabricate along with it, can it? It'll only be for one night, anyway. 

They end up talking for far longer than Taeil had anticipated, and the conversation isn't even particularly painful. Yuta's smile is blinding, and he decides that he likes the way he twirls his hair absentmindedly. Dark roots climb up behind blonde locks; it's disheveled, but in a way that's not overdone. It's endearing. 

Yuta holds his hand on the walk back to his apartment, swinging it between them childishly while he talks. The steadiness of his voice lets Taeil know that he's completely sober, which was unexpected considering where they had met. He files the information away for later. 

Yuta talks a lot, but not in an abrasive way. He readily tries to give Taeil as much speaking time, but the conversation still ends up unbalanced as he's never been particularly loquacious anyway. It becomes a bit of a game for him, trying to answer Yuta's questions without giving away too much information. He's never liked outright lying. Regardless, he learns that Yuta is a year younger than him, just finishing up his graduate degree at the local university. 

His apartment is a bit bigger than what he'd expect for a student, and is certainly much neater. In the living room stands a bookshelf, on the highest shelf of which stands a line of candles. Taeil briefly wonders if it's always this organized, or if he only cleans up on nights he picks people up from bars. 

Above all, there is an air of stillness in the apartment that makes him intensely curious. He tries not to be obvious about it, but the details of each room seem to connect to one another like an invisible ribbon has been drawn between them. 

Yuta offers him water, which he declines, before leading him to his bedroom. He dims the lights, pulls Taeil so that they're close, and kisses him. 

It's been a while since he's kissed anyone, and he can't help the strain of nervousness that permeates his body. Yuta seems to take note of it, softening the kiss and holding his waist gentler than necessary. It's a thoughtful gesture, and Taeil tries to dispel the tension in his muscles to reciprocate. 

"Are you okay?" Yuta asks when he pulls away. They're both breathing heavily. Taeil nods. 

"Are you sure?" he pushes.

"I am. It's just...been a while, I guess," Taeil says, and the shyness in his voice is sincere. Yuta draws a hand down his arm slowly; it's meant to be comforting, and he's surprised that it actually works.

"I'll go slow for you, okay?" 

Taeil smiles gratefully. 

The way Yuta fucks him is unmistakably possessive, but there's a marked sense of intimacy that doesn't make him as nervous as he thought it would. He asks Taeil for permission before positioning him how he wants, before stripping him of his clothes and spreading his legs; not verbally, but with deep looks he doesn't know how he can read. In fact, there's much more eye contact involved than Taeil thought was necessary, but he rolls with it. Yuta's eyes are nice to look at, anyhow. 

He can't deny that Yuta is very good at what he does. Taeil is completely exhausted by the time the sweat on his body cools, and he can't remember the last time sex had brought him such satisfaction. Yuta brings a warm towel to wipe off the cum between them, opening the window on the way. From here, Taeil can see the waning moon; an awkward, white smudge hanging limply in the sky. 

He falls asleep wondering what else Seoul might have in store for him.

//

Taeil's phone buzzes incessantly from his pants pocket, which lies somewhere on the floor of the room. He drags himself out of bed to find it out of politeness—Yuta was a surprisingly good host, and he wouldn't want to wake him up.

And who could be calling him at this hour, anyway? The caller id only read  _ unknown number _ , which was as much of an answer as he could get.

"What?" Taeil asks curtly when he answers, stepping into the hall for privacy. 

"Taeil, what the fuck did you do?" Taeyong says from the other end. The connection is godawful, but he can still tell by the tone of his voice that he's about to blow a casket. 

"My job?" he says, not following.

"You realize the man you had a hit on had a bounty on his head worth millions? Seoul PD is scrambling to find out who did it; they haven't found a single lead to trace. Kun is going to start a war when he finds out who took his kill—you remember Kun, right?" 

"Yes, I remember Kun." They had met once and only once, which is how Taeil would like it to stay. A hint of a Chinese accent and earthy cologne were his main takeaways.

"Seriously—I won't say I'm not impressed that you could even pull it off, but you have to understand the target you've painted on your back." 

Taeil debates his options. "And just how do you know it was me?" He says, choosing not to give away anything. 

Doyoung scoffs. "I know you're in Seoul, Taeil. You know I have eyes everywhere. And you don't have to play coy with me, either." 

Taeil hums. "Well, it's a good thing I was paid in advance. Kun is just gonna have to suck it."

"That's what I'm  _ saying,  _ though. Kun is the most stubborn bastard I know. He'll find you if you don't watch your back."

"I'll keep that in mind." Taeil tries to keep his tone nonchalant, but ice cold dread starts to form at the base of his spine. He hears shuffling from beyond the bedroom door. "Look, I have to go. I'll be around." With that, he hangs up and goes back into the room. 

Yuta is picking up their clothes from the floor, sorting out Taeil's and laying them on a chair in the corner. He looks up when Taeil walks in.

"Not leaving so early I hope?" 

Taeil pointedly glances at the clock. "It's almost ten." 

"Don't want to stay for round two?" There's a hint of mirth in his voice, but also hope. Taeil walks over to the chair, toying with the hem of his shirt draped over the back of it.

"Not particularly, but I could be convinced." Yuta moves closer to him and places his hands on Taeil's waist. He tilts his head coyly, blonde hair falling in front of his face. 

"I could give you a couple good reasons to stay." There's a twinkle in his eye, and Taeil inclines his head just barely enough to show Yuta that the light is green. 

Yuta kisses him slowly, lips warm and wet against his own, gently working Taeil's tension out of his body. Taeil has never been a slave to his lust, but he's surprised at how quickly heat starts prickling beneath the patches skin where Yuta touches him. He melts into his body, suddenly craving that intense heat from the night before. He puts both of his arms around Yuta's neck, lets him draw him impossibly closer, tilts his head so Yuta can kiss him deeper. A moan escapes Taeil's throat and they pull apart, panting. One of Yuta's handa drifts down to his thigh, pulling up gently. 

"Come on, baby," he says when Taeil wraps the leg around his waist, Yuta lifting the other. He carries Taeil to the bed and sets him down softly, crawling on top of him and resuming the kiss. Taeil can't help but smile into it, something like playfulness roiling in his gut. 

"Enjoying yourself?" Yuta asks him. Taeil bucks his hips in response, causing Yuta to gasp. Taeil gives him a cheeky smile.

"Enjoying you," he says. Yuta laughs, and his smile is absolutely radiant. 

Somehow, the sex is better than the first time. Yuta's skin is illuminated in the light of day, soft and inviting. Taeil lets himself get lost in the roll of his hips and the press of lips against his collarbone. 

Yuta asks him for his number before he leaves. Taeil contemplates giving him a fake one before deciding against it; he had bought a throw-away phone for a reason. It's rigged to self-destruct by his command; might as well have fun with it.

On the way back to his hotel, he tallies up all the mistakes he made last night. Talking to Taeyong in a stranger's presence, letting his guard down in front of said stranger, staying much longer than he should have for no other reason than to feel another person's touch. Yuta was gentlemanly, at least, and he had remembered to give a fake name in the end. He promises himself it wouldn't happen again. 

He gets a text from an unknown number while he's packing up what little belongings he has. It's Yuta, of course, asking if this was Jangsik's number.  _ Miss me already?  _ is what Taeil texts back. He sets his phone down, making sure he has all his belongings. The three-sided knife concealed under his sweater is a heavy comfort, and his sniper rifle is strapped safely in his suitcase, hidden beneath a mountain of clothing. Taeyong had said the police were completely at a loss as far as leads go, but he knew better than to take that as a reason to relax. 

His second phone buzzes in his pocket when he exits the hotel, hardly catching the clerk's  _ Thank you for your stay!  _ as he contemplates where to go next.  _ Just a little, _ Yuta's text reads. Taeil smiles. It's nice to be missed, even if it's just for his body.

He ends up picking another hotel all the way across town, this one twice as expensive as the last. It's ostentatious, he knows, but he thinks he's earned the right to splurge every once in a while. It's here that some other clients make contact with him through various means, some more roundabout than others. They're easy jobs; destroying ledgers, "botched" hits meant to intimidate, some menial heists. 

Meanwhile, the money from his last hit trickles in bit by bit so as not to raise any alarms. It's far more than he knows what to do with, but it's nice to have, he supposes. At least he's finally doing something with his life, like his parents always told him to do. As he watches his offshore bank account reach ten digits, he momentarily wonders how Haechan is paying his college tuition. He would be graduating soon, if he had his timeline correct. He could pay off all four years of his undergrad if he wanted. When this is all over and he can see him again. 

It's senseless for a man in his line of work to make plans too far into the future. Taeyong had told him stories of men with great plans who had their entire life pulled from under then at the drop of a hat, years of planning gone to waste. There's no use getting attached to ideals. Still, he can't help but store the thought in the back of his mind for later. 

He sees Yuta a handful of times over the next two weeks. It's only sex, but Yuta has a way of making it seem like they're lovers. It's easy to be comfortable with him, to pretend he's a normal person with a normal life. After their fourth night together, he starts preparing post-coitus snacks for the both of them, generally consisting of grapes, cheese, and wine, like his apartment is some kind of fourteenth century royal palace where Taeil is being courted. Yuta laughs when he voices the comparison out loud, lifting a hand to run through Taeil's hair. It's grown long now, reaching the base of his neck and tickling the top of his spine. 

"How long have you been in Seoul?" Taeil asks him, trying to ignore the warmth of Yuta's palm on his scalp. 

"Six years, now." Light from the candles he lit on the dresser reflect in his eyes. "What about you?" 

"Not very long," he tells him. "I didn't expect to stay here for more than a week or two." 

"Someone change your mind?" Yuta's hand drops to his neck, then his shoulder. The skin there is warmed by the candlelight, where they peek from under the bedsheets.

"Are you this intimate with everyone?" he dodges, popping a grape into his mouth.

"I guess so. Usually I'd have scared them off by now. You don't seem scared, though." 

"I keep coming back, I suppose." Taeil sighs in mock dejection. Yuta laughs again and kisses him, deep and patient, slotting his leg between Taeil's, working what little defenses he has out of his body until his back is arching into his touch. 

Then, unbidden, something sharp prods Taeil's memory and he freezes.

"What? What's wrong?" Yuta asks him, something approaching guilt painting his features. Taeil wants to coo at him; he's too sweet to be with someone like him. 

"My name isn't Jangsik," he confesses. "It's Taeil." 

Yuta raises his eyebrows. "You gave me a fake name but a real number." He states incredulously.

"What can I say? You're so pretty, it made me lose my senses." Taeil doesn't know where the flirt in him came from, but Yuta seems to appreciate it, laughing. 

"Careful. If you flatter me, you'll never be rid of me." With that he pulls Taeil into another kiss, 

That night, as he's planting evidence in the cold storage room of an ice cream shop ('Just get the NIS off my tail,' this particular client had demanded,) his mind continues to drift to the warmth Yuta's apartment, of his body, of his breath. He's working in the dark, saliva dripping onto the flashlight he's holding in his mouth while he pulls out containers of ice cream and replaces them with containers of ammunition. He's so focused on the work (or at least, he's trying to focus on it,) that his soul completely leaves his body at the sound of footsteps approaching behind him. He turns around swiftly, drawing his gun and aiming it at the stranger. Light from the flashlight falls onto the stranger's face, and Taeil is greeted with Doyoung's unimpressed stare. 

"You're still here," he says calmly, but Taeil recognizes the condescension laced in between the three words. 

"I am," he answers around the flashlight, before lowering his gun and taking it from his mouth. "Might I ask why  _ you're  _ here?" 

"Word around town is Seoul's underworld has been stirred up into a frenzy over the assassination of one Kim Junmyeon," His words have a lilt to them that give Taeil the impression of a movie villain. Doyoung, likewise, paces around the room, using his own flashlight to inspect the ice cream containers casually. "Successful businessman and philanthropist to the common people, respected kingpin and weapons dealer in the underworld. He practically ran half of the smuggling business in South Korea. You  _ do  _ know who you killed, right, neophyte?" 

Taeil feels a sense of pride that the nickname doesn't piss him off like it used to, but he still has to refrain from rolling his eyes. 

In truth, Taeil hadn't known all that much about Junmyeon. His client had offered an astronomical amount of money for his death, though, and Taeil was new enough in the hitman business that any reputation he had wouldn't have been shattered by a failed assassination of Junmyeon's scale. Maybe some part of him had  _ hoped  _ he would fail, so he could run back to Jeju with his tail between his legs and an easier, if more pathetic life than whatever the hell he was doing right now.

It didn't happen that way, though. He had found him on the toilet of his penthouse, pants around his legs, and Taeil had shot him point-blank in the head. Miraculous, really. 

"Well, he's dead now, so I can't imagine it matters all that much." Taeil wants to turn back to finish this job and fucking  _ leave,  _ but he knows better than to turn his back on someone he can't, and doesn't, trust. "How'd you know it was me, anyway?" 

"I did the math—aha!" Taeil turns to see him pulling a tub of ice cream from one of the containers. Chocolate mint.  _ Only pricks like chocolate mint,  _ he thinks bitterly. "Anyway, the police are still off your trail. No fucking idea how you managed that, so good job, I guess. Maybe I taught you something after all. But you've long overstayed your welcome in Seoul. Each day you stay here only increases the risk of someone  _ else  _ catching onto you."

"Nobody in the underworld knows who I am besides our group back in Jeju," Taeil reasons, giving up and quickly shoving the last of the ammunition crates onto the shelves. "I still have time to muck around." 

"I know you do, Taeil." Doyoung's voice changes to something caring, almost motherly. "You're one of the best men I've seen out in the field. I'd just hate for you to have an early death." 

"You'd have one less person to drive up the wall," Taeil says, job finally complete. When he shines his light back on Doyoung, he finds him leaning against one of the shelves, looking like all is right in the world and he's never thought about killing someone else for money in his life. 

"I have a schedule. Taeyong and Johnny already got my fill of me for the month. You were up next." 

Taeil actually does roll his eyes this time. "Whatever. Wanna get drinks?" 

"You read my mind." 

Their drinks turn out to be of the non-alcoholic sort, because Doyoung decided halfway to the nearest bar that he'd actually rather not be inebriated in such a 'cesspool of a city', as he put it. 

"You were born here, though. What does that make you?"

"A social pariah, I guess. Just look at my line of work." 

They stop at a decently sized 24-hour cafe, a concept Taeil can hardly wrap his head around. People like their coffee, he guesses. He himself orders hot chocolate, while Doyoung gets a black coffee. They do some light catching up, and it's surprisingly nice. Whether or not he and Doyoung see eye to eye on any given meeting is a solid fifty percent chance, and this one seems to have landed on the positive result. 

"You've come a long way from being a nervous wreck back in Jeju, all those years ago." Doyoung comments.

Taeil swirls his straw in his mug—a real ceramic mug, not a cardboard cup he had been expecting. Even with all the wealth he's accrued recently, small luxuries like this seem out of this world. "I remember the first time I had got dragged into all this. All because Johnny was obsessed with getting that new console." He remembers being eighteen, too terrified of other people to look them in the eye most of the time, paralyzed by the thought of ever stepping foot on a college campus. A life of crime seemed the farthest thing from possible.

Doyoung smiles wistfully, then it falters. "You don't regret it, do you?" 

Taeil's thought about that question nigh-obsessively. "No. I thought I did, at some point, but...no, not anymore." He turns to look out the window, watching the dark, empty street. "I would've died a socially inept freak if I hadn't gotten caught up with you guys. It wasn't the best way to be forced out of my shell, but who knows if I ever  _ would _ have otherwise." 

"People turn to crime for all kinds of reasons. It's never as black and white as people think. It's good you don't feel too horrible about it." 

Taeil hums in agreeance. "Not to mention, I have more money now than anyone in the past two generations of my family have had in their entire lives." he says jokingly, and Doyoung laughs. 

Taeil had grown up—or just  _ barely  _ grown up, as he liked to say—dirt poor. Eating just enough to not be hungry, to never be full, was all he ever knew, until he stole his first few hundred dollars with Doyoung, Taeyong, and Johnny, and they had split the money between them. Johnny had bought a new Xbox; Doyoung, a bouquet of flowers and expensive earrings for Taeyong. Taeyong put his into savings, like a good boy, and Taeil—Taeil had spent all of it on groceries. That's the kind of life he lived, and that's the kind of life he thought he had been resigned to for the rest of his life. 

As their group started to get together more often, started stealing bigger and better things, occasionally putting together complex plots to meet their ends, they all came to realize how  _ fun  _ organized crime was; or at least how lucrative. They started making connections, moving on to bigger and better jobs, and years later they had scattered to the wind—still keeping in close contact, but lives mostly set out for them. 

Taeil had been the last to leave Jeju. He had mostly gotten over his fear of being alone and helpless by then, but it felt too much like abandoning Haechan. Which was stupid, in hindsight. Haechan had always been brighter and more outgoing than he was, at a solid five years his junior. It was Taeil's mother that had given him the nickname. 

And now, he was all grown up. He had earned enough scholarship money to live on campus, and he was doing what made him happy. 

Taeil isn't sure if he had fully convinced himself that he was doing what made him happy, too. 

He opens his mouth to make another joke, to clear the blanket of somberness that's fallen over his mind, but something engraved into their table catches his eye. At first he can't make sense of it, just a mess of crude lines etched into the wood, but suddenly they click together in his mind. It's a Chinese character. It takes a moment for Taeil to draw the meaning deep from the memory of his  _ hanja  _ studies back in highschool, but he remembers it:  _ intimidate  _ or  _ majesty.  _ A character commonly associated with Qian Kun. 

Doyoung seems to notice the character at the same time he does. He looks at Taeil, and he recognizes the shift in his eyes from all those times they were almost caught back in Jeju. He casts his eye to the counter where the cashier took their orders, and Taeil does the same. He's young, with one earbud in, scrolling on his phone. It's a good sign, but they both know better than to think they're completely safe here. 

"Let's go," Taeil whispers, and Doyoung follows his brisk steps out the door. 

They agree that it's best they split up again for now. Somewhere east is Doyoung's next destination, he says, maybe even Japan. Taeil promises to keep in touch, and then he's gone to the wind again, bidding Taeil goodbye with a stern  _ Be careful out there  _ and a quieter  _ I'm always here if you need help.  _ Taeil is glad their relationship seems to have mellowed out as the years have gone by. Maybe lack of constant contact is best for them. 

Nothing ever comes of the incident at the cafe. Taeil takes it as a sign to mellow out, though, and he declines all the clients that come to him for the next few months. Eventually he gets tired of living in hotels, and he rents out a small studio apartment in a one of Seoul's nicer areas, paying for the next six months. He's tentative to actually move in, fearful of something going terribly wrong and having to make a quick escape. He knows it's silly for someone in his line of work to be attached to material things, but he thinks it's ingrained in his DNA. 

Regardless, he splurges on a few things; a piano, a record player, a new wardrobe. If he's going to be a transient hitman, he at least has to play the part of being a normal person on the surface. 

It's nearly a week before Yuta texts him again. He's expecting it to be just another booty call, but his eyebrows fly to his hairline when he sees it's a request for a date. Taeil is suddenly glad that he had bought new clothes. 

He isn't sure why he says yes, to be honest. Yuta is warm and gentlemanly, but Taeil isn't sure he feels anything more than sexual attraction towards him. He isn't sure if he  _ wants  _ to feel anything more than sexual attraction. Nonetheless, the affirmative is already sent, and Yuta says he'll pick him up at six sharp tomorrow afternoon. 

Taeil lounges around for the entire day, waiting for six o'clock to come. He's not exactly bored, but he definitely feels like something is changing, or has already changed. Taeil has never been on a date before, and for once, he doesn't feel terrified of getting another 'first' out of the way. He wishes Haechan could see him now, but he can wait. 

Or, rather, he supposes he doesn't exactly  _ have  _ to. 

In a spur of the moment decision, he picks up his phone—his  _ real  _ phone—and calls Haechan. He picks up on the third ring. 

"Hyung! You haven't called in so long, you dumb bitch," Haechan yells into the phone, nearly startling Taeil from where he's balanced upside down on the couch, legs hanging off the back of the cushions. 

"You can call me too, you know. It's not like phones only go one way," he says. 

"Are you back in Jeju yet?" Haechan ignores him. Taeil's eyes tear up with fondness. "My school's holding an amateur film festival this weekend, you should come! I really think it's something you'd like—do you remember that time we planned a whole movie together, even though we didn't have a camera or anything?" 

Taeil laughs at the memory. Ironically, it had been a film about the mafia; though much of the plot is out of his mind's reach. "I remember that. We raided the theater room's storage for costumes." Taeil sighs. "But no, I'm still in Seoul. I only meant to stay for a week, but I think some time away from Jeju would be good for me." He says it apologetically, like he's asking for forgiveness, even though he knows Haechan will understand.

And he does. "That's good, hyung. You should stay where you feel happiest. I'll probably still be in Jeju, so you can come visit whenever you can." Taeil never hinted at staying in Seoul for as long as Haechan was implying, but oddly, the thought of relocating to Seoul permanently isn't an idea he's averse to at all. 

They talk for a little while more. Haechan tells him about school, his friends, the funny dog he sees on the way to his afternoon classes everyday, and Taeil is just glad that even with several hundred miles of distance between them, they can still talk like this. He tells him about Seoul, how smoggy it is, how weird it is he can't smell the ocean when he opens the window first thing in the morning. 

Before he hangs up, just like he always does when he calls Haechan, he considers confessing everything—the life of crime he's been leading since he finished high school, how he's never had an actual job in his life, how sorry he is he couldn't be a better role model. But he doesn't, just tells Haechan he loves him and ends the call. 

Taeil puts on a maroon button-up and jeans, deciding on something relatively simple to wear so he can spend the next forty-five minutes styling his hair; a habit he used to chastise Johnny for, when they were younger. He makes a note to acknowledge his genius the next time they see each other. 

He expects Yuta to text him when he's outside his apartment so he can come out; he absolutely doesn't expect him to knock on his door at 5:59 holding a bundle of roses. Taeil can feel his face turning bright red. Yuta just laughs and holds his hand out, which Taeil shyly accepts. 

Yuta takes him to an expensive but cozy restaurant, completely befitting his cheesy taste in romance. Not that Taeil is complaining; no, quite the opposite. Yuta charms him the entire night—somehow, he's an expert at making Taeil laugh, and his jaw hurts midway through dinner from smiling so much. Something about his eyes are magnetic; he feels like he might miss something important if he looks away for even a second. It's a strange feeling,  _ wanting  _ to make eye contact with someone, but Yuta makes him want to tie up all his childish fears into a bag and toss it over a cliff. The longer Taeil admires the curve of his jaw and the more he thinks he just might.

Little by little he's able to let his guard down, and though a bit of paranoia is still there, he can't deny that being with Yuta makes him feel comfortable, maybe even safe. Not safe  _ enough,  _ but he's definitely getting there. 

"So, are you ever going to tell me what it is you do for a living?" 

Ah, right. That. 

Taeil shuffles uncomfortably in his seat, trying not to make it obvious he's making up something on the spot. 

"I'm...sort of in between jobs right now," he says. Yuta's smile falters. 

"Taeil, I've been seeing you for almost a month now. Can we be done with the non-answers?" 

Panic starts to bubble up in his chest, but he keeps it in check. Okay. The truth. Or as much of it as he can give without scaring Yuta away. 

"I'm sorry, I know I've been dodging questions since we've met, it's just…" Taeil fumbles for the right words. "It's a family thing. I put myself and them at risk by letting anyone know what kind of business we're in. I really do want to tell you, please believe me, but it's too early on for me to know if I can trust you." 

Yuta listens patiently, eyes trained on him. There's understanding in his expression, maybe even sympathy, and Taeil both loves and loathes that he was able to convince him so easily. It wasn't exactly a lie, he supposes, but he really likes Yuta, and he wants to be honest with him. Now just isn't the time. 

"I understand," he says after a few moments, during which he had Taeil pinned with an unfaltering stare, as if trying to gauge if he was lying or not. It seems like he came out the other end unscathed. "I won't pry anymore about it, if that's what you want. But I want you to be able to trust me at some point." 

Yuta reaches across the table then, taking Taeil's hand in his own. "I really like you, you know. I don't know what such a gem like you was doing in that club a month ago, but I'm glad I found you." Taeil flushes again and drops his gaze, embarrassed. Yuta laughs and kisses the back of his hand.

As dinner winds down, Yuta suggests watching a movie back at his apartment, which he agrees to. He lets Taeil pick, and they settle on  _ Princess Mononoke _ , which Yuta approves of. He doesn't expect to spend the night, but he's being hugged close to Yuta's chest and the movie is lulling them both to sleep, so he lets his eyes shut and drifts off into a dreamless slumber. 

When he wakes to sunlight streaming into the room casting a long yellow stripe on the wall, he feels Yuta's gentle breaths falling against his cheek where he's pressed into his chest, and he wonders if he's in a movie. Their legs are tangled and he can still smell the lavender cologne Yuta had been wearing the day previous. Taeil contemplates the lightness of his heart, how he feels like he might float away any second. 

Eventually Yuta wakes up, and Taeil feels like his body is about to collapse in on itself, being so close to that brilliant smile. He thinks he does when he kisses him and he can feel Yuta's giggle reverberate through his own chest, shaking every cell in his body apart until all he's aware of, all he wants to be aware of is  _ Yuta.  _ For the rest of the day, he's the only thing he can think about.

It's dangerous, but even if just for now, he'll let himself romanticize life.

//

Some weeks later, he's lazing around his apartment when he realizes that whatever he's doing with Yuta might be more serious than he initially thought. 

Yuta invites him to another dinner, this time with some of his friends from the university, and Taeil's is shocked into silence for long enough for Yuta to ask if he's still on the line. 

"I—I'm here," he stammers. "I mean. I'd like to spend time with you, but isn't it a bit early?" 

"Early? It's not like we haven't been on dates before."

"I meant meeting your friends," he clarifies. Yuta shuffles on the other end of the line.

"If you're not comfortable with it, you don't have to," he tells him. "But they're nice guys, easy to get along with. I'm sure they'll like you a lot." A beat. "For what it's worth, it'd make me really happy if you were there." 

There's no way Taeil can deny him that, which is why he finds himself in front of a hot pot stove with Yuta and three other people he's just met. 

Jaehyun is quiet, but there's absolutely a loudness or integrity to his presence that he finds interesting. He has a warm disposition throughout the whole dinner that puts him at ease. 

Jungwoo has a similar softness about him, but it's flimsier than Jaehyun's, like a wrong look could send his whole character toppling over. He has a nervous energy bubbling just beneath the surface, and Taeil can't help but keep an eye on him.

Mark, he decides, he likes. he continuously makes an effort to bring Taeil into the conversation so that he doesn't feel left out. The attempts are as awkward and irregular as his pattern of speech, but it's somehow terribly endearing. Regardless, as much as Taeil appreciates it, he's never been much of a conversationalist in the first place. He contributes when asked, but they're not the most wordy responses. 

Yuta squeezes his hand after one such reply and leans into his space. 

"Are you okay?" he asks, a comforting smile paired with furrowed brows. Taeil smiles at him.

"I'm okay. Just…" The word is hard to spit out.

"Shy?" Yuta finishes for him, thankfully. Taeil nods. "Don't think too hard about it. They like you." 

_ They like me,  _ Taeil repeats in his head. The idea seems too far away for him to comprehend, but he appreciates the sentiment anyway. 

It becomes easier as the night goes on, once their food and drinks have arrived. Yuta is a vibrant talker when he's with other people, he discovers. When they're alone he's gentle and soft spoken, if not occasionally snarky; but right now he's loud and vivacious, his style of speaking almost downright aggressive. It's startling at first, but eventually he's able to fall into his rhythm, and it's... _ fun. _ The chatter is lively as they jump from topic to topic, never remaining on one subject for too long and never going beyond the superficial. 

Taeil is laughing at something Mark had said, and he's about to comment on it when something catches his eye on the table. Engraved crudely into the wood is a small Chinese character—the same one he had seen at the cafe with Doyoung. His hand is frozen above where he was reaching for his chopsticks, hair standing on end. 

"Taeil?" he hears Yuta call, and his trance is broken. His friends are still talking to each other animatedly, luckily not noticing his sudden stiffness. 

"I'm—sorry," Taeil says, trying to collect himself. He feels very scattered all of a sudden. "I just remembered something. I'm okay. I promise." He hopes Yuta believes him, because there's no way he can explain what's bothering him; at least not here. Their booth is pressed against the wall, but Taeil still has the urge to look over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching him. 

"If you're sure," Yuta tells him, rubbing circles into his hand, grasped under the table. "If you want to leave early, just let me know, okay?" He nods his head, trying his best to get his thoughts and feelings back in line. 

It's not likely anything will come of his presence here, and he's safer with a group a people than he is alone. He's in the territory of the dragon king now; he should tread carefully. When nobody's looking, he pulls one of his napkins to cover the engraving so he doesn't have to look at it. 

The night winds down naturally with no further hiccups. Yuta has a class later in the afternoon and some other errands to run, so he drives Taeil home with a promise to text him later.

"I'm really glad you came," he tells him so tenderly he thinks he might fall apart then and there. He doesn't let Taeil go without a kiss to the back of his hand and he really, really thinks he's in some kind of k-drama, because nobody in real life is this romantic. Yet here Yuta is, looking in his eyes with such ardent affection that it can't be anything but  _ real.  _

Taeil doesn't think he's been in love before. He thought he might have fallen for Doyoung once, early on in their twenties when he had really started to grow into his broad shoulders and he had perfected that snake-like gaze to use on people who weren't doing his bidding. It had been an ugly mix of spite, longing, and admiration for all of Doyoung's sharpest, most painful edges. To this day he still isn't sure what those feelings were, but they were possessive and it made him feel horrible. 

He knows he loves Haechan, but that's more brotherly, maybe even motherly, than romantic. He doesn't want Haechan as much as he wants him to be happy. 

So these feelings for Yuta he doesn't exactly know what to do with. These aren't possessive or protective, though; they're something much softer, much more fulfilling. He's lucky that Yuta doesn't seem to mind taking the lead with these things, because Taeil sure as hell isn't going to even make an attempt. He lets him peel off his clothes one by one, run his fingers and his lips across each new region of skin that's exposed, and he didn't know this type of intimacy was ever possible. 

Once he's inside his apartment, he doesn't freak out, at least not in any way that'd be obvious to anyone who doesn't know Taeil well. Sitting at his piano and playing for two hours non-stop is as red a flag can get, though, and if Taeyong were here, he would have dragged him away by the ear by now to get him to deal with his feelings in a way that's  _ "fucking normal, you little loser."  _

He's mashing the keys so hard, pretending every note is accented with a  _ fortississimo _ , that he almost doesn't notice the unusual creak of wood from somewhere in the apartment. Cutting the measure short, he steps quietly from the room, puts his back to the wall where the hallway opens up, and listens. 

He's almost about to chalk it up to paranoia until he just barely picks up the sound of someone struggling to cover up their harsh breaths. As if they had been running. 

As if they had just climbed into a window.

He tiptoes to the kitchen, carefully reaching back in his cutlery draw to pick out his throwing knives. Crouching behind the island, he waits until he sees footsteps from just around the corner. With as much force as possible, he dives a knife into the back of the intruder's knee, and he hits the ground  _ hard.  _ Before he can react, Taeil pins one of his wrists to the ground and stabs his other hand with the other knife. 

"Who are you?" Taeil demands. He doesn't recognize him even after taking off his balaclava, but to be fair, his face is contorted into something ugly as he writhes in pain. When he doesn't answer, he grabs his face with one hand and slams it onto the cold wooden floor. 

"Answer me!" 

The man tries to this time, but it's still difficult to decipher from the tears. God, how annoying.  _ You act too quickly sometimes, you know,  _ Johnny's words ring in his head. He's about to try it again before he notices blank ink curling its way from under where Taeil is holding his wrist. Shifting his hand lower, he sees it—a Chinese character, the same one he had seen at the cafe with Doyoung. It's as much of an answer as he needs. 

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now," he says above the man's tears. "If you can even speak Korean." It's not conducive to getting an answer, but something cruel urges him to twist the knife buried in the stranger's hand, so he does. He bunches up the balaclava and shoves it in his mouth to muffle his cries of pain. They're grating on his ears.

Well, he can't just let him go, of course, and he certainly can't let him live. Violently shoving down the bile that's about to work its way up his throat, he pulls the knife from the intruder's hand and drives it straight through his jugular. There's a thick spray of blood that lands on the side of the island, dripping down to the wood in dark red streaks. 

It's too early for this. Kun must not be completely convinced Taeil is the man he's looking for, if he sent someone amateurish enough to attempt an assassination in broad daylight. He won't be returning to Shanghai, though, and Kun will be able to track the blood trail right to him. Maybe he really is too quick to resort to violence.

While the body is still twitching, he stands and moves to the kitchen sink to rinse his hands. He'll have to move. So much for six months worth of downpayment. 

Returning to his piano, he resumes playing one bar from where he left off. This time he heeds the  _ pianissimo  _ notation, the metronome in his head running at a steady 58 bpm.

//

Taeil packs his things that night and only decides where his next destination is once he's at the airport. There's a plane to Mokpo boarding in thirty minutes, and he gives his hardest stare when the lady at the counter eyes his cash payment like there are maggots crawling all over it. 

Ocean air greets him when he steps off the plane, and he's almost struck dizzy with how much he misses Jeju. Or maybe it's the fact that it's only the second plane he's ever been on and his body hasn't quite adjusted. Either way, he can't help but notice that the ocean here smells different than in Jeju; he had assumed they all smelled the same. 

He doesn't bother picking a nice hotel to stay at, this time, instead opting for the first one he sees. 

Truth be told, he's still dumbstruck, several hundred miles and three hours later. He's made plenty attempts on others lives—succeeded in most of them—but this is the first time an attempt has been made on  _ his  _ life. He doesn't really want to think about it right now, so he calls Yuta.

"Miss me already?" Yuta teases when he answers. Taeil laughs nervously.

"Um...well, I do miss you, but I called for another reason. Something came up in the family, I found out just after you dropped me off. I have to leave Seoul for a little while." 

Yuta is silent on the other line for a few moments, and Taeil uses those few seconds to convince himself he's being dumped. 

"Okay," is what he starts with, and Taeil is holding his breath. "How long?" 

Baby steps. "I don't know. I really don't. I'm really sorry, Yuta—" 

"Are you breaking up with me?" he interrupts, and his heart skips a beat. 

"No, no! That's not—I thought _ you _ would break up with  _ me, _ " Taeil explains.

"So you were gonna break up with me first?" Taeil splutters with embarrassment, trying to come up with a defense that didn't make him sound like an idiot, but Yuta laughs and he freezes. 

"I was just kidding. I'm willing to do long distance if you are, Taeil." He takes in a breath, trying to calm his nerves. They really don't respond to reason.

"I want to try," Taeil says. "I'm just—sorry I can't be a more stable partner for you." He hears Yuta breathe a laugh again. 

"I wasn't kidding when I said I really liked you. We can work this out together. I'm glad you're communicating with me about it." Taeil is shocked silent. "I can hear you blushing." 

"You're evil," he says.

"You love me."  _ Maybe I do,  _ Taeil thinks. 

Yuta is the first to hang up, doing his best to ensure Taeil he isn't upset, which he's still hard pressed to believe, but at least he's making an effort. He doesn't know how long it's been since he's felt this nervous, and he hates it. There's not much he can do about it now, though.

With nobody else to distract him, his mind drifts back to the body that had been lying in his apartment in Seoul. He had called Jaemin—a contact he had made while he was out on a job for one of his clients—to clean it up for him as repayment for a favor. He thinks about those strawberry blonde locks and how he looked way too young to be doing what he was doing. He supposes there never really is 'too young' in their line of work. 

He lays in bed contemplating it for he doesn't know how long when there's a knock at the door. Looking through the peephole, he recognizes the tall figure and his auburn dyed hair immediately. Relief floods him and he opens the door. 

Johnny whistles as he enters, hands in his pockets and sunglasses propped up on his forehead. He's wearing a flower print blazer over a white t-shirt, and he looks like he just got back from Hawaii. Knowing his tastes, he probably just did. 

"Quite the place you got here," he quips. He walks to the singular lamp in the room, spins the shade around its pole. 

"Hey, I gotta make ends meet, you know. Can't go spending beyond my means." Taeil jokes back. "Is it worth asking how the hell you knew I was here? Did Doyoung put a tracker on me or something?" 

"He thought really hard about it, but no, it's not that. He's just got people, now." Johnny turns to look at him. "Seems like both of you guys are moving up in the underworld, huh? Heard you were making waves in Seoul this past month." 

"Something like that," Taeil says. "Someone tried to cull me in my own home. I got here barely an hour ago." He pauses, suddenly feeling years younger than he is. "What should I do, Johnny? I never thought I'd be good enough for someone to try and  _ kill  _ me." 

Johnny sits on the edge of his bed, and it creaks. "Who's on your tail? Do you know?"

"Qian Kun."

Johnny whistles at that, eyebrows flying to the top of his head. "Damn, dude."

"Thanks. You're real helpful." 

"I try." Something in his countenance shifts, and Taeil can tell he's going into advice mode. Without fail, Johnny's advice has saved his hide in one way or another—everyone's hide in their group, to tell the truth. 

"Well, you've got a couple options. You could fake your death. That'll get them off your tail real quickly." 

"Sounds messy."

"Very," Johnny smirks then, and Taeil can tell he's about to say something terrible. "You could also just kill yourself for real."

Called it. "Ha ha." 

"Or you could just lay low for a while, which would be the easiest route. That doesn't always work for everyone, though, and who knows how long you'd have to live that kind of half-life for until it all blows over."  _ What I'm doing now isn't a half-life?  _ Taeil thinks to himself. 

"Anything else?" 

Johnny ponders for a moment, lips pursed. 

"Maybe...If you framed someone else, that'd throw them off. But that could be complicated. Otherwise, I kind of have no idea." 

He spends some minutes contemplating all his choices. Frankly, they all sound like they'd take copious amounts of planning, predicting, and putting more people in harm's way than he wants to. Suddenly the responsibility of having to decide for himself what to do with his life is nearly unbearable. 

"What does the chef recommend?"

"I'd just lay low, if I were you. Come vacation with me in the States; it'll be fun. You know I know how to have a good time." Johnny winks at him, and he can't help but smile.

Taeil is inclined to accept the offer, but big hands and fading peach hair dye shove their way to the forefront of his mind. His heart pangs when he thinks of Yuta, and oh, this is the whole 'getting attached' thing he wasn't supposed to do. 

"I have someone waiting for me, back in Seoul," he says meekly, half expecting Taeyong to burst through the wall and chastise him. Taeil learned the hard way that Taeyong was an expert in the art of whipping a dead horse, and so he had made an effort to avoid even a smidge of his ire. He'd have a field day with him if he found out he had started a relationship at as inopportune a time as this. 

Taeyong and Doyoung made it work, because they were both transient people by nature, and neither of them minded being apart from one another for an extended period of time. They were long-distance lovers, even when they all shared that shitty apartment back in Jeju. Taeil isn't sure he can be that way for very long. 

Maybe he shouldn't even think of his relationship with Yuta so seriously just yet. He'd known him for a little over a month, and they've only been dating for a couple weeks. Maybe he should just drop it. 

"That complicates things," Johnny says gently. "What do you  _ want  _ to do?" 

"I want to see him again," Taeil says easily, one thing he is certain of in the middle of all this mess. "I don't want to let him down. He's so sweet, Johnny." He smiles at Taeil, something fond. 

"You know I'm a romantic, Taeil. Don't get me all worked up about forbidden love." How Johnny can still joke at a time like this, he doesn't know. He wishes he could have picked up his happy-go-lucky attitude instead of Doyoung's ruthlessness or Taeyong's death stares. 

"Well, if you want to get back to him as soon as possible...maybe we could do something big that'll throw them off your trail forever." Johnny suddenly perks up, and Taeil is sure that if he had dog ears, they'd be at a solid ninety-degree angle right now.

"Maybe we can get the band back together!" 

Oh, god. 

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" 

"Of course, it's a  _ fantastic  _ idea! Come on, you know how well we work together. We'd help you out of the hole you dug, and it'll be just like the old days!" 

Taeil thinks about it, then sighs. If they want to do something big to put his life back together, it'd be best to do it as a team. 

"Alright, fine. Let's get the band back together." 

//

They all meet up in Busan, some weeks later. Johnny keeps him company in the time leading up to it, and Yuta doesn't seem to mind only being able to contact him through phone calls lasting hours at a time. Taeil doesn't think he's talked to anyone so regularly and for such long periods of time, but if anything, it's a sign that he really has changed for the better. 

The house Johnny had bought here in Busan years ago has mostly collected dust, and Doyoung had suggested it as the safest place to formulate their master plan. It overlooks the ocean, settled on top of a cliff that has to be at least a hundred feet high. Johnny had called it the  _ Casa de Johnny Stark,  _ and Taeil thinks it's an apt comparison considering Johnny's taste in all things ostentatious. 

"As long as it doesn't explode and fall into the ocean, I'm game," Doyoung had said upon arrival. He had paced around the living room and kitchen like a prospector waiting to point out any flaw he comes across.

"It didn't  _ explode,  _ it was hit by a bunch of missiles, you fake fan." 

"Sounds pretty explody to me," Taeil says to annoy him. Johnny just scoffs and mumbles something about Koreans not being able to appreciate fine cinema. 

Taeyong arrives not long after Doyoung. The first thing Taeil notices is that he's still wearing those same expensive earrings Doyoung had bought him after their first heist in Jeju. They're of the long dangly variety, the kind that match his personality exactly. Sparkly and freedom-loving. His nails are painted too, now, alternating black and dark magenta. 

"Good to see you're still alive," he greets Taeil. To Johnny, he says, "What's up, bitch." 

"Yo." 

To Doyoung, he gives a light peck on the cheek and intertwines their fingers before getting down to business. That's how it's always been with Taeyong; assuming the leadership position without much preamble. Somehow it's not condescending at all—or at least he's managed to not make it seem that way. 

"Those are all lame and stupid. We're doing it my way," is what he says when Johnny repeats to them the same choices he had given Taeil. Okay, he can definitely come off as condescending when he wants to. "I say we bait him out of his stupid piece of shit hiding hole and off him then and there, like he deserves." There's an unusual amount of vitriol in his voice and it's almost enough to make Taeil's hair stand on end. Taeyong is a caustic person, but outright belligerent doesn't describe him at all. 

"You sound pretty fired up about this, hyung," Doyoung comments, inspecting the rings on his fingers in a blasé manner. "Some kind of personal vendetta against Qian Kun?" 

" _ Qian Kun, _ " Taeyong spits the name out, "is keeping my plans from running smoothly." 

"And what plans would those be?" Doyoung asks.

"World domination, of course." Johnny snorts. That's Taeyong's way of saying  _ It's a secret and if you ask again, I'll break your kneecaps.  _

Nobody seems particularly averse to the idea of turning the hunter into the hunted, so they go along with Taeyong's idea. He, Johnny, and Doyoung do most of the preliminary planning; Taeil is usually never able to get a word in during this stage. Their minds move too quickly for him to keep up, taking into account and predicting events that Taeil never would've thought of. Not much has really changed between them at all, he's unsurprised to find out. 

To answer the question of what plan they're going with, from what he understands, it ends up being all of the above. 

The first stage of Taeyong's grandmaster plan involves committing as many crimes as possible over the span of a month, and making sure Taeil's name is written in neon-colored ink all over them. They start in Busan, since they're all already there; they steal from big-name jewelry stores, derail smuggling operations, aid in money laundering, and Taeil stopped counting how many people they were bribing once it hit the double digits. Taeyong delegates some contract killing to Doyoung and Taeil, which are few and far between, but nonetheless are some of the more exciting jobs. 

After each and every job, they make sure that the name  _ Dal  _ is apparent somewhere at their place of work. The Korean word for  _ moon,  _ it was an old nickname Taeyong had decided for him back when they were first dipping their toes in the pool of organized crime. Eventually they decided code names were lame, but they're serving a better purpose now, Taeil thinks. Even now, as he shakes his can of white spray paint and draws a large semi-circle in what he hopes is close enough to a crescent moon, he wonders what they could've accomplished if they had stuck together after all. 

"All done," he says, swinging his bag around to his front and stashing away the can. "Let her rip." 

Doyoung lights a match on the heel of his boot (Taeil scoffs at his theatricality) and drops it on the ground, at the beginning of the gasoline trail leading out from under the doorway. Johnny is waiting in the car when they flee the small building, smoke already peeling out from the tinted windows. 

"Nothing like the fresh smell of insurance fraud in the morning," he says sardonically. The moon seems to glow in the sky, partially obscured by clouds, to silently remind them that it is very far from morning. 

"I'm fucking exhausted," Doyoung says, peeling off his ski mask. "That's the third contract this week. Can't we just give Kun a phone call and challenge him to a duel or something?" 

Back in Jeju, they never had contracts; they only ever worked for themselves. Taeil got used to clients approaching him when he had been the only one left on the island, and even more so while he was in Seoul, but this was unprecedented. Taeyong had his hands full scheduling them so jobs wouldn't interfere with each other, but were still completed within the requested time frame. He's got his work cut out for him, if anything. 

That night, he decides that they've stirred the pot enough in Busan, and their next stop is Ulsan. It's mostly the same thing, the only difference being that the name  _ Dal  _ is beginning to gain traction. When Taeyong sends him to "monitor the town", as he puts it, he feels a kind of tingly anticipation at knowing  _ he's  _ the person being whispered about conspiratorially by people trying and failing to be discreet. 

He wonders how long it'll be until people will be able to put a face to the name. 

From Ulsan, they move to Daegu, returning to the coast at Pohang, and then moving north once more to Gangneung. If Taeil thought he was good at what he does before, he's certain now that he's earned his infamy. Negotiating through second and third parties and covering up every single track he makes becomes his new lifestyle, and it's so deeply ingrained in him now that he almost forgets that this isn't going to be permanent. Yuta is waiting for him back in Seoul, cozied up in his apartment finalizing a master's thesis and planning the next steps of his life—a life that Taeil wants to be a part of. 

Covertness aside, he's impressed with himself at how well he's managed to maintain their relationship. He makes it a point to call him at least once a day and actually put in the effort to hold a decent conversation. It comes easier than he had expected, Yuta providing him a sense of comfort and acceptance he's never felt with anyone else, and that's proof enough for Taeil that all of this is going to be worth it. 

Speaking candidly, Taeil had thought that the lack of physical contact between them would have been a breaking point for Yuta; even at the very beginning of their relationship, he could tell that he was a very tactile person. He turned out to be more versatile than he thought, because at some point, phone sex becomes a regular part of their routine. Hearing him pant heavily through a phone speaker about how much he misses Taeil, mouthing promises about how good he'll will make him feel the next time he sees him while he strokes himself, is an experience that puts him on cloud nine.

Being wanted so badly is, decidedly, euphoric. 

//

Taeil learns from Doyoung that The Vision (apparently Kun's gang had a name) has quite the presence in Gangneun, which is why this will be their last stop on their tour of the South Korean coast. 

"He's had his eyes set on Japan for a while now, but hasn't been able to make that great leap forward," he explains. Johnny boos the reference. "Gangneun is about as close as he's able to get." 

"And I'd like to keep it that way," says Taeyong. "We've gained enough traction to manipulate some of the minor organizations in the area. I got the locations of some of their major bases of operation, but we should start small if we really want Kun biting at his fingernails." 

Kun's men, or  _ Visionaries  _ as they're apparently known around here, really do seem to have a finger in every pie; it's almost as if the entire town is just Kun's playground. Honestly, that probably isn't even too far off the mark. 

They start by running businesses into the ground—small fisheries, post offices, and things of the like—that very clearly double as extraneous headquarters. Taeil gets used to the smell of burning contracts and fish oil after the first few weeks. 

Up and up they move until Taeil is pretty sure that the entire town is about to explode from tension. He already felt the civilians were suspicious, but now nearly everyone is looking at each other with distrust, nobody quite sure what's happening to their sleepy little port city. He marvels at how well Taeyong is playing puppet master, blackmailing and baiting nearly every one of the contacts they have in the region. 

It must have been more difficult than he anticipated, because they're left with nothing to do for a couple days while Taeyong works alone, trying to force Gangneun to bend to his will. He does eventually pull through, however, and he gives them a date and time—Sunday, two days from now, precisely at midnight. 

"They know where we are," he announces when they're all gathered at a nearby elementary school playground. Nobody feels particularly comfortable talking in public, but Taeyong had insisted they come here. It's empty now, bordering on desolate. He keeps casting glances around to make sure it stays that way. Taeil wouldn't call him  _ nervous,  _ but he's definitely on edge. "The motel is bugged to hell and back. Out here is safer. But more importantly, they're going to make a move soon. They're sending an arsonist." 

"So what's the plan, chief?" Johnny asks. Taeyong gets this apprehensive look on his face and crosses his arms.

"We let them kill Taeil."

They all look up at him, surprised, before their gazes move to Taeil. 

"What?" Doyoung is the first to break the shocked silence.

Taeyong eyes him gravely before suddenly bursting into laughter. "Oh, you guys are too good for me." 

"You're joking about my life?" Taeil speaks up for what feels like the first time in days. He regrets it immediately, as he knows what Taeyong's response is about to be.

"Your entire life is a joke, Taeil."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I walked into that one. But seriously, what's our next move?" 

"We're going to fake your death." Another shocked silence greets him, but this time he talks through it. "We'll let Kun think he got you, and then when his guard is down, we'll strike back twice as hard. He won't know what hit him." 

It's a ballsy plan, for sure. Faking someone's death is difficult enough as it is, but despite his immature sense of humor, Taeil has faith Taeyong can pull it off. 

He's enlisted the help of another organization in the area, one that Kun's crossed one too many times for them to forgive. They meet with them the following day to solidify plans (he recognizes strawberry blonde hair, albeit faded, and doesn't do anything to acknowledge Jaemin's wink), though Taeil suspects that Taeyong just wants a face to recognize should they stab him in the back later on. Doyoung seems to sense his apprehension, always standing a little closer to Taeyong than necessary, like a guard dog. Johnny seems particularly interested in the mechanics and physiology involved in replicating a body burned to a cinder, even going as far as discussing biology and chemistry with Jaemin, at which point everybody else tunes out. He wonders absently what Johnny could have accomplished if he had gone to college. 

With Doyoung and Johnny in charge of the setup and Taeyong micromanaging everybody, there isn't very much for Taeil to do. Taeyong seems to come to that realization at the same time he does, and he pulls him to the side.

"You can go, you know. You're supposed to be dead." 

"...Go?" Taeil repeats, not quite following. Taeyong rolls his eyes.

"Yes. Go somewhere else; take a vacation, or something. The rest of my grandmaster plan doesn't involve you. In fact, it'd be best if you were actively  _ un _ involved." It's not a scathing remark, just a statement—and Taeyong, at his core, has every single detail planned right down to its atomic composition. He wouldn't be leaving Taeil out unless—

He's doing him a favor. 

Taeyong raises an eyebrow when realization comes over Taeil's face, and he can't help but give a large smile. 

"Thank you, Taeyong," he says. His mind is reeling with possibilities; no more living in the shadows or looking behind his back. 

"Uh-huh," he says. He's never been one for gushy displays of emotion; if whatever Taeil was doing now could be called 'gushy'. "But just a suggestion, it's probably best if you leave Korea. One of us will come get you when all the pieces fall into place." 

Taeil boards the next flight to Osaka that night, taking time with his goodbyes to memorize their faces in case something goes wrong. He calls Yuta as soon as he steps into the airport.

"Osaka?" Yuta asks incredulously. They've talked enough by this point for Taeil to recognize the hint of excitement buzzing beneath his voice. "Really? You're there right now?" 

"I just stepped off the plane," Taeil tells him. 

"I'm supposed to be headed to Osaka this weekend. How long are you staying?" 

"Indefinitely, as of right now," Taeil says.

There's a pause on the other line. 

"Is it family business?" Yuta asks. Taeil brings his thumb to his mouth, chews on his nail as he weighs his options.

"It is," he says. "

"You're either a runaway prince or a mafia kingpin," Yuta jokes. Taeil laughs—not so much at the ludicrousness of him being a mafia kingpin as how close Yuta's dart is to being right on target.

Yuta stays in his parents' home for the duration of his vacation, but he's over at Taeil's hotel often enough for him to frequently forget it. He doesn't want to say it's something awful like  _ love,  _ but holding Yuta, feeling his heart race beneath his palm and hearing his laugh echo throughout the penthouse suite makes his throat constrict, like something is threatening to break through his esophagus, to make itself violently known. 

He feels that way right now, playing a gentle, rolling piano piece (it actually came with the suite this time) while Yuta sits beside him, knees touching. Yuta hums along to the melody occasionally, in places where he thinks he can predict the melody of the following measure. He's usually right. They fall into an odd kind of rhythm, one where Taeil is hardly even aware of his hands moving across the keys, too busy trying to drown in the timbre of Yuta's voice. 

At some point Yuta's hand drifts to Taeil's thigh, and they barely make it to the couch in their haste to rid each other of any piece of fabric covering their bodies. 

Yuta shows Taeil around Osaka, taking him to various shops and attractions in the city and pouting when Taeil doesn't let him buy anything for him. He's sure Yuta has picked up on his wealth, but he's certain he has no idea just how filthy rich he really is. Regardless, he'd feel horrible if he let Yuta spend money on him when Taeil could buy both of them separate mansions and still have a sizeable amount of money left over. 

  
  
  


None of the places Taeil visits really excite him; Osaka, for the most part, is a lot like Seoul. There are a lot of people and a lot of colors and he it's difficult for him to let his guard down, even if just for a moment. Yuta notices his constant glancing around and, to his relief, suggests they spend the rest of the day indoors. 

Their time in Osaka feels like a dream. Yuta seems to be a cloud that just lifts him higher and higher, the lack of oxygen making everything else around him blur or fade away completely. The edges of their kisses are laced with something that's asking, begging,  _ please stay with me longer,  _ but neither of them admit it. Taeil almost wants to bridge the gap, to make Yuta want him badly enough to just take what he  _ wants,  _ but he doesn't know just how far Yuta will go. He had picked up on it before when they had first met in Seoul, but there's a dimension of relentlessness, of graceful cruelty in his character that he knew would begin to peek out from under the bed at some point. He isn't sure if now is the right time to bait that monster. 

As it would turn out, though, he doesn't have to. 

It comes out by itself.

It happens when they're coming home from dinner. Aside from what transpires, Taeil doesn't think he could ever forget that night, because the moon was so full and so bright, he thought that he could reach out and touch it from wherever he was on cloud nine. 

Yuta had wanted to call a taxi back home, but Taeil had insisted on getting a breath of the cool nighttime air. The beauty of the moon had only been a plus. Yuta's arm is slung over his shoulders, pressing him close to his side. He feels a hazy warmth dancing around his chest that isn't the alcohol. 

What  _ is  _ the alcohol, however, is how dull and muted all his senses are. In hindsight, maybe that's why he doesn't notice whatever Yuta does while they're walking back to the apartment, but at some point he leans into Taeil's space and whispers to him. 

"We're being followed." 

His mind takes a moment to process that, and he laughs as if Yuta had told a joke when it does. 

If they're being followed, it means they're about to be jumped by some thug, or Taeyong's plan didn't work out in Gangneun. He brushes a hand over his waist and curses inwardly when his dagger isn't there. He didn't think he would need it. 

Yuta leans in again. "Just follow me." 

Taeil does. They pass by the street they were supposed to turn on and several more following that; their steps are no more frenetic than before, but he picks up on a new brusqueness in Yuta's pace that he finds comforting. 

Finally they come to a populated subway station, with blinding artificial lights that Taeil kind of hates. 

"We're taking the train back?" he asks Yuta.

"We're taking it to Kyoto. It's not crowded enough here to be sure that we've completely lost whoever was following us, but it gets pretty packed on the way there." he explains. "It might be a bit much, but better safe than sorry." 

Taeil isn't sorry at all. "It's not too much. It'll be romantic; two young men escaping certain peril by going on a roundabout journey to a distant land—a best seller, surely!" Yuta laughs and takes his hand, twining their fingers together. Heat creeps onto Taeil's cheeks.

"This is why I like you, Taeil." 

It's about an hour and a half to Kyoto and back, and then a separate train back to Taeil's penthouse. He's ready to collapse onto the couch, not even considering making the trek to his bedroom, but Yuta suddenly grabs his wrist with a tight grip.

"Someone's here."

He steps slowly, pulling Taeil with him until they're pressed against a wall. The only thing illuminating the penthouse is moonlight trickling out from the bedroom into the hallway. It's where Taeil keeps his eyes trained, ears straining to hear anything at all. He's vaguely aware of the slow movement of Yuta's other arm and he catches the telltale sheen of a blade. He can't make out any part of his face, but his breathing is near silent. 

The cascade of moonlight that paints the hall shifts, and that's their chance. They both step forward at the same time, but Yuta pushes him backwards, gentle but stern. 

"Stay," he breathes. 

He watches him tiptoe down the hall, deathly silent, avoiding the stream of light that might alert the invader of their presence. His silhouette disappears into the room, and all is stock still. 

Then there's a loud  _ snap _ , a shout, and enough tumbling to spur Taeil to action. He sprints to the room, but it doesn't seem like he was needed after all. Yuta has someone pinned to the ground, one of their arms bent at an unnatural angle, Yuta holding the other down with an iron grip. 

Yuta yells something at him in Japanese. The man beneath him groans with the effort, but manages to speak clearly.

"Dal's days are numbered," he says in clear Korean. "You can run, but you can't hide." 

Yuta lets out a harsh breath. His hands move to either side of the man's head jerks it to the side with a snap; Taeil watches the tension of his body leave almost instantly. Yuta stands and brushes his hands on his pants as if they were dirty. 

"Lee fucking Taeyong," he mutters to himself angrily. Taeil freezes. 

No.

God fucking  _ damn it.  _

Shock paves way for anger, then embarrassment, before settling on apprehension. He doesn't know the script this time, can't show his ace just yet.  _ Play the part, Taeil,  _ Doyoung's voice echoes in his head. He still hates that he can't even  _ think  _ without Doyoung or Taeyong butting in somehow, but that's a gripe for another day. He steels himself, expelling any and all emotion from his voice besides what he hopes Yuta will take as genuine fear.

"Lee Taeyong?" 

Yuta whips his head towards him then, as if he had forgotten he was there. Stepping over the body, he moves to touch Taeil, to hold him, but Taeil takes a step backwards towards the door. Yuta freezes.

"Baby, this—It's not what you think," he starts.

"Then what is it?" he sprinkles just a hint of enmity in his voice, enough to make Yuta spit out his story. It works. 

"Lee Taeyong is an old contact of mine. He's…" Yuta fumbles for a second, playing with his fingers in his nervousness, before sighing. "He's a criminal. A hitman. If there was a bounty on his head, it'd be worth millions." He at Taeil closely as if gauging his reaction. When he finds nothing he can decipher, he continues.

"He contacted me some weeks ago, wanting information on the underworld in Kansai. Which happens to be why I'm in Osaka right now. He told me he was planning something big. I didn't ask what—it's better to know as little as possible in these kinds of things—but he told me I wouldn't be at risk. He told me…" he trails off there, saying something under his breath. Taeil doesn't bother asking what it was.

"So you're, what? Taeyong's informant?" Taeil says. 

"Pretty much, yeah."

"You just killed someone." 

"He would have killed me first," he says with a sudden conviction that catches him off guard. Taeil holds back his smile. "I don't know who Dal even is. I seriously have no idea what's going on right now. I knew we were being followed, but I didn't think they'd be in your damn  _ house."  _ Taeil doesn't say anything more, just watches Yuta to see what he'll do next. 

What he does next is take a tentative step towards Taeil again, and this time he doesn't move. 

"Look, baby, I know this looks like I'm a cold blooded killer, but I'm really not part of—whatever this is. Assassination attempts, murdering...Taeyong gave me another contact in case things here go wrong here. I'll call him and then we can go back to Seoul. Nothing is going to come of this. I'll tell Taeyong that I failed and then it'll be fine, okay?" Yuta is close now, and he reaches out to Taeil, taking both of his hands in his own. There's tension in his brow, and Taeil thinks he could become obsessed with how much Yuta wants his pardon. He rubs circles into the top of his hand, and though Yuta is looking at him with such deep sincerity, Taeil can see the violent grief waiting behind brown eyes in the case that he rejects him. 

Finally letting his smile come through, he leans up and kisses Yuta lightly on the lips. 

"I've known Lee Taeyong since I was a teenager," Taeil tells him sweetly. "I'm no stranger to cold blooded killers." 

Yuta's jaw goes slack in surprise, and Taeil just laughs. It's cute.

He doesn't give Yuta every detail, but he confesses that he's a thief with a bounty with more digits than he's bothered to remember on his head, on the run from a crime organization much larger than he thought was worth the management trouble, and Taeyong was helping get them off his back. He leaves off the hitman for hire part, but Yuta isn't so easily fooled.

"Taeyong kills people. Do you kill people, too?" The way he asks has an almost childlike innocence about it, like he was asking how magnets work or if aliens were real. They're facing each other on the couch now, Yuta sitting cross legged while Taeil's head is resting on the back cushions. He's listening with rapt attention as Taeil recounts his tale.

"If they ask me to," he admits. "The night I met you, I had just assassinated some big-name smuggling kingpin in Seoul. But the killings are few and far in between." 

Yuta is silent for a moment. 

"Taeyong had hired me to kill people before," he starts quietly. Now it's Taeil's turn to give him his full attention. "It was a few years ago, when I had first started graduate school. I had fallen into a bad group, but after the bodies started piling up, I decided it wasn't for me. I told him I wasn't interested anymore. I started to focus on school full-time."

"And clubbing."

"And clubbing," he agrees with a soft smile. Then he sighs and it falls away. "I didn't want to get dragged back into it, but Taeyong was insistent."

Taeil hums. "He can be that way." Taeyong was on another level when it came to getting people to do what he wanted them to. He had a way of making it seem like it was  _ your  _ idea to help him; tricking people into convincing themselves of something takes a kind of affinity with people that had, for the most part, always escaped him. 

There's a knock on the door. Yuta goes to open it; there are some words exchanged and a man walks into the living room where Taeil is now curled up. 

"Are you stalking me?" Taeil asks the man when they make eye contact. It's too precarious for him to chalk it up to simple comedic coincidence. 

"No, not that," Na Jaemin says with that shit-eating grin that he's always wearing. His hair is blonde now, with blue streaks on his bangs that fall to the side of his face. 

Suddenly it clicks.

"You're one of Doyoung's people," he states, and Jaemin just winks at him. 

They prefer not to be around to watch Jaemin dispose of the body, so Taeil packs a small travel bag and leaves with Yuta. He has no way to contact Taeyong, Doyoung, or Johnny, and he isn't sure he'll feel all that safe being in continental Korea.

So they fly to Jeju. 

He estimates that it'll only be a matter of days before word reaches any of the three that things went poorly in Osaka, and maybe a few more after that for them to track him down. All he can really do is hope that Kun's people don't find him first.

He knows he should be laying as low as possible, but he misses the beach too much. He and Haechan used to walk the shoreline barefoot for hours, watching the sun move along the horizon and cast cool yellow stripes on the water. It's what he's doing now, although in place of Haechan is Yuta. He misses Haechan, like he always has and always will, but this is nice, too—it's close enough to home to be comforting, and different enough to be refreshing. 

Taeil used to think that the shoreline would be here at the end of all things, a place he could always return to. The sentiment didn't change even after he learned about the erosion of coastlines. 

He counts two days before Taeyong is banging on the door of the very secluded, very hard to reach beach house he had rented. 

"What the  _ fuck  _ are you doing here." is what he says when Taeil opens the door, as if he isn't the one imposing on his home. His arms are crossed, and Taeil notices he's exchanged the dangly earrings for small silver and cobalt hoops. 

"I preferred the dangly ones," Taeil tells him. 

" _I'd_ prefer if you'd answer the damn question." He leads Taeyong into the house, letting it fall shut behind them. Yuta is sitting at the table in the living room on his laptop. He looks up at Taeyong and blanches. Their eyes meet and Taeyong just scoffs. 

"Yuta." he greets coolly. 

"Stop being a prick. I really doubt you didn't wring all the information you needed out of Jaemin, anyway." Taeil says, going to sit by Yuta. 

"The Vision found you," he states. Taeil nods. He expects something dark to fall over Taeyong's face, but instead he just looks thoughtful. "I thought we had faked the death pretty well." Taeil isn't really concerned about that, to be frank.

"Did you know Yuta and I were...together?" He can feel his cheeks flush faintly, but he ignores it. "Is that why you chose him to be your spy?"

Taeyong is inspecting the living room, running his index finger on various surfaces as if checking for cleanliness. Ever the self-ascribed expert on aesthetic matters, Taeil absently wonders if Doyoung picked up his condescension from him or vice versa. He doesn't look at them when he responds. 

"Taeil, I am being completely, one-hundred percent honest when I say that it was a coincidence you two happened to know each other," he says. Taeil rubs his finger on the corner of the table, deciding if he wants to believe him or not. When he can't come to a decision, he supposes it doesn't matter. 

"What's next?" he asks Taeyong. 

"Nothing," he turns to him finally. "Whoever came after you was acting on old orders. Qian Kun isn't going to be a threat to you anymore." 

Taeil's eyes widen. "You killed him?"

"Declawed, more like." Taeyong smiles at something in his head. "My plan still has some more steps to go, but you're story ends here."

He almost can't believe it. He's free—free to be with Yuta, to live however he wants. 

But how  _ does  _ he want to live?

Taeyong seems to read his mind. "You don't have to remain a criminal, you know. Even way back when, I thought you were too soft hearted for this." he tells him. "Why don't you—I don't know, settle down? You have other options now, and enough money to take your damn time deciding on which one."

Taeil had been a nobody all throughout grade school and had started thieving immediately after high school, never even considering going to college or holding down a job. It sounds daunting, but he thinks it might be worth the stability it'll bring later on in life. His parents had always taught him to plan for the long term—maybe it was time to finally put that to use.

"I'll think about it." he says. Taeyong smiles. 

"I'm your friend before your partner in crime, Taeil. You don't have to be so evasive with me." Taeil doesn't have anything to say to that, so he just returns the smile.

At the door, Taeyong suddenly turns to Yuta. 

"Take care of him or I'll come after you." Yuta's smile is nervous, and Taeyong just pats his shoulder.

"I'll be in touch, Taeil. Find Jaemin if you need me." With that he's gone to the wind again, and Taeil's heart feels strangely overwhelmed. 

"What will you do?" Yuta asks him, arm around his waist. "I mean, will you still…"

Taeil gets it. "I don't know." It's the truth. He's scared to try new things; stealing, forging, and killing has been his entire adult life. Deep down, though, there's a part of him that doesn't want to be left behind by Taeyong and the others—they live their lives in the fast lane, and while Taeil craves stability, he doesn't want to stagnate. He tells Yuta this. 

"You're allowed to carve your own path in life, you know." he says. "You can live a fast-paced life without fearing for your life the whole time." 

Taeil considers this. He feels very young suddenly; like he's fifteen again, teaching Haechan to play simple melodies on his old piano. His hands had been too small to play most of the chords and he had cried from frustration. He smiles at the memory. 

"For what it's worth," Yuta continues, "It'd make me really happy if you settled down with me. I know we haven't been dating for that long, but I wasn't kidding that night when I said I wanted to get to know you." 

Taeil thinks of long nights planning heists with Johnny, Doyoung, and Taeyong; cheap gas station food and practice lockpicking kits were symbolic of their lives together, but occasional antagonism aside, he's never trusted a group of people more. 

Then he thinks of sand between his toes and Haechan's laughter; considers the warmth of Yuta's body and the way his accent hardens some of the softer Korean words, not quite knowing how to wrap his tongue around certain consonants. 

Taeil leans up and kisses Yuta as a response. He can't come to a decision just yet, but he can enjoy his time here with him.

He's allowed that, at least. 

//

The next day, rejuvenated with his newfound emancipation from certain peril, he calls Haechan. He yells excitedly into the microphone when he relays that he's back in Jeju, demanding that Taeil come see him. Apparently he found a new American-style restaurant that is absolutely out of this world, and he sobs every morning knowing he can't afford to eat there every day. 

"We can go there the next time you're free," Taeil tells him. "You can meet my boyfriend, too."

Haechan loses it. 

//

  
  


EPILOGUE

A couple weeks pass in an idyllic peace. Yuta is on his laptop in bed, Taeil still half asleep while the sun rises over the horizon. He can see his screen from where he's laying, and something catches his eye.

It's a headline from a news article. In all caps, it reads:

CHINESE CRIME BOSS REDISTRIBUTES STOLEN WEALTH TO SOUTH KOREAN WORKING CLASS

Taeil is completely in awe.

"Lee fucking Taeyong," he says under his breath. 

**Author's Note:**

> -taeils fake name is a ref to ham jangsik, or TSM lustboy, the god, the legend, my king
> 
> -威神V; the first character is kun's gang's symbol. it means majesty or intimidate.
> 
> -suho dying on the toilet is a reference to the phenomenon of great men dying on toilets; also game of thrones
> 
> -taeil was playing satie's premiere gymnopedie, fortississimo with all notes accented. ever wonder what that sounds like?
> 
> -58 bpm is a reference to fridaysblues (taemin)'s fic 58 bpm, which is a big fave of mine
> 
> -the great leap forward was one of communist china's economic plans when mao first came into power. it failed miserably.
> 
> yeah this is actually just a dotae fic sorry. actually this wasn't supposed to be a romance fic at all i just wanted to write something with taeil haha. but im happy with how this turned out :^) 
> 
> thanks for reading! comments are greatly valued!!!


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